NASHVILLE, TN.-Presidential photographer Joe O'Donnell, 85, died. He shot some of the first photographs after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. He also served as a White House photographer for the terms of five presidents. Joe O'Donnell first recorded the Pacific Campaign during World War II as a Marine. Hi visited Hiroshima in September 1945 and took photographs of the destruction left by the atomic bomb. The images were first exhibited in the 1990’s and later Vanderbilt University Press published them in a book titled "Japan 1945: A U.S. Marine's Photographs from Ground Zero" in 2005.

The U.S. Information Agency hired him after the war to photograph presidents. After the war, O'Donnell began working as a freelance photographer in Washington, where he was recruited by the U.S. Information Agency to photograph presidents. He was a White House photographer during the administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. O'Donnell was one of several photographers to capture a picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket.